Crown Guild Vendor Hall/Tent

Lunaugh · February 2018

Greetings fellow Elder Scrolls gamers and ZOS,

Merchant guilds fight hard to maintain a vendor, paying upwards of 50,000 gold for low level vendor locations (In other words: not Rawl, Mournhold, Wayrest, Grahtwood, etc).
It becomes difficult for non-merchant focused guilds to maintain a vendor, and a death-sentence for merchant guilds who loose their bids multiple cycles in a row. (This is operating under the assumption that successful merchant guilds keep upwards of 400 active members who actively sell. With a large number of merchant guilds constantly recruiting, if a merchant guild is without a vendor for 2 or 3 cycles, they are expected to see a High turnover of their members.)

A way for ZOS to get some more cash from the population would be to charge crowns for a unique vendor/vendor area. It could be a 'guild hall' to avoid the issue of having multiple guilds buy a vendor in an area, or it could be on the bidding system as well.

Personally I imagine a tent (like the Undaunted tent in Grahtwood) riddled with NPC's, all decked in build tabbards. I'd go up, pay my crowns, guarantee my guilds trader and go on my merry way.
I'd much rather spend 10-20$ to grab a guild vendor than spend 8-10 hours farming gold and prodding guild members to donate for raffle tickets.

VaranisArano · February 2018

Just making sure I understand this.

So at its most basic, you want ZOS to add more guild store merchants to the game so its not quite so competitive. Not a bad idea, but I'm not sure it'll do much about the competitiveness, especially not with the rise of dummy guilds claiming traders.

Then you want those guild store merchants to be bought for crowns, because clearly pay-to-win is okay if its guilds and not players? Not sure I can get behind that one.

Lunaugh · February 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

Just making sure I understand this.

So at its most basic, you want ZOS to add more guild store merchants to the game so its not quite so competitive. Not a bad idea, but I'm not sure it'll do much about the competitiveness, especially not with the rise of dummy guilds claiming traders.

Then you want those guild store merchants to be bought for crowns, because clearly pay-to-win is okay if its guilds and not players? Not sure I can get behind that one.

Pay to win? Win what? In this scenario, new vendors would be installed. Paying would not win you anything you could get before. Paying would get you new vendor location near the more desirable and established guild vendor locations.

In todays day in age, most players have to pay to play in some form or other. Everyone has to make an initial payment to establish their account, and every player must have internet, which comes at costs of its own. It is not a matter of "It's unfair because I don't want to spend that money". It is a matter of "Working, I make 10$ an hour, so if I work two hours, I can save myself 8-10 hours of grinding in game". Excessive grinding only exists to incentivise purchases and artificially create value for the levels of characters.
How can you apply such a broad term like "pay to win" to the scenario above? I'd like you to elaborate on your point, a simple phrase will not convey a proper rebuttal.

VaranisArano · February 2018

Lunaugh wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Just making sure I understand this.

So at its most basic, you want ZOS to add more guild store merchants to the game so its not quite so competitive. Not a bad idea, but I'm not sure it'll do much about the competitiveness, especially not with the rise of dummy guilds claiming traders.

Then you want those guild store merchants to be bought for crowns, because clearly pay-to-win is okay if its guilds and not players? Not sure I can get behind that one.

Pay to win? Win what? In this scenario, new vendors would be installed. Paying would not win you anything you could get before. Paying would get you new vendor location near the more desirable and established guild vendor locations.

In todays day in age, most players have to pay to play in some form or other. Everyone has to make an initial payment to establish their account, and every player must have internet, which comes at costs of its own. It is not a matter of "It's unfair because I don't want to spend that money". It is a matter of "Working, I make 10$ an hour, so if I work two hours, I can save myself 8-10 hours of grinding in game". Excessive grinding only exists to incentivise purchases and artificially create value for the levels of characters.
How can you apply such a broad term like "pay to win" to the scenario above? I'd like you to elaborate on your point, a simple phrase will not convey a proper rebuttal.

So then I'm really confused as to how the crowns work into this. Do you want more merchants that can be bought for gold or crowns? Do you want us to pay crowns to add more merchants?

The way I understood the original proposal was that you wanted ZOS to add a unique vendor area where vendors can only be bought for crowns...but I'm very confused about what you are trying to suggest in the first place.

Lunaugh · February 2018

I appologize for lacking proper articulation. Let me try again.

From my unique and Biased player/guild leader perspective: My guild has a PvE playerbase with rp and PvE focus. I want to provide a guild trader in a decent location for my guildmates, to due so I grind 30-50k gold to foot the bid and pray I win. I do not bid in high volume merchent areas having knowledge of the millions of gold that top merchent guilds bid.

I have a raffle, but sans-requirements means low turnout unless a gambling fever is stirred (usually again by my own injection of gold to sweeten the pot).
If I could buy a guild vendor remotly near Shornhelm or on the outskirts of Grahtwood with 20$ in crowns (one that is souly purchasable with crowns) it would benifit me as an indicual a great deal.

Edit:P.S.

I would like to clarify, the traders would cycle weekly just as the current traders.
P.P.S
an interesting Idea is to have a tiered payment plan to get more than one cycle (I.E. 20$ for one , 35$ for two and 45$ for three)

Donari · February 2018

Are you thinking of this as a one time purchase or weekly like the in-game bid system? (I think it's weekly -- I've never been part of the bid process -- I know I couldn't justify 20 bucks RL cash a week for a vendor). For either one time or weekly how do you propose preventing vendor spam, as in hundreds of vendors piling up in an area, possibly obscuring each other? Would there be competition to be the first to buy a spot? If it's permanent and there are limited spots, what happens if a guild goes inactive?

As a casual player who won't qualify for trader guild membership but would still like to sell things to other players without having to spam advertise I'm all for ways around the prohibitive guild trader system, but I'm not sure your suggestion doesn't hold pitfalls of its own.

Stickbow · February 2018

The 'richer' guilds would put in a requirement that the members pay a cash price to the guild leader so they could buy crowns (since AFAIK you can't 'gift' crowns). Then they'd outbid smaller guilds. That brings a world of confusion and potential RL cash fraud with it.

That said, seems like you're solving a problem that may not exist. Does your guild really need a trader to stay active and viable?

If your guild is a "PvE playerbase with rp and PvE focus" - ask them if they'd stay if there were no trader. I'm in three guilds w/o a trader - two completely intentionally -- and they do fine, with a need to regularly purge the rolls of inactive members to keep the ability to recruit new actives. They don't advertise in zone chat with "Active Trading Guild".

Do the larger PVP, PVE/dungeon/raid and RP guilds have -- or have to have -- a guild trader to grow and stay viable?

Beardimus · February 2018

If you can get traders for 30-50k id say just do that, and get your bank account up, rather than a system to pay $20 each week which seems excessive and not needed.

Each to their own I guess I just can't see the logic personally.

Hope you find a solution

Lunaugh · February 2018

Stickbow wrote: »

The 'richer' guilds would put in a requirement that the members pay a cash price to the guild leader so they could buy crowns (since AFAIK you can't 'gift' crowns). Then they'd outbid smaller guilds. That brings a world of confusion and potential RL cash fraud with it.

That said, seems like you're solving a problem that may not exist. Does your guild really need a trader to stay active and viable?

If your guild is a "PvE playerbase with rp and PvE focus" - ask them if they'd stay if there were no trader. I'm in three guilds w/o a trader - two completely intentionally -- and they do fine, with a need to regularly purge the rolls of inactive members to keep the ability to recruit new actives. They don't advertise in zone chat with "Active Trading Guild".

Do the larger PVP, PVE/dungeon/raid and RP guilds have -- or have to have -- a guild trader to grow and stay viable?

I don’t feel that you understand my suggestion. This is not a fix. This a suggestion to add a way for Zos to make money, while allowing smaller guilds to have alternative methods for guild trading. I chose high dollar amounts to balance the ‘pay to win’ idealogy, and because I am dedicated enough to my guild and financially stable enough to pay 20$ a week for a guild vendor. I’d cut down on other entertainment items in my budget. I will elaborate when convenient, going dark (no net for a period of time).
EDIT:
On pay-to-win: I feel that one can view certain aspects of the game as Pay to Win, but it can be argued both ways. The imperial racial passives are unique and highly advantageous for a stamina weapon fighter build. A lowest level of pay player (the initial cost of their ESO account) can play for years and never have access to the content. Pay-to-win. The Warden Class is another example (and I argue the only other example) of pay-to-win.
Crown Scrolls and Crown motifs do not = pay-to-win. Crown Scrolls: Scrolls reduce the amount of grinding, necessarily the amount of time necessary to obtain EXP. Grinding is not a skill, it is not a unique ability; it is a highly repetative task that is done to achieve a repetative goal. The person who buys Crown scrolls is still grinding, they are only using hours they spent working in place of hours they spent playing. No unfair advantage is present.

On Zos needing money: We enjoy a massive online game which necessitates heavy wear and tear on servers, constantly connected to the web, heavily monitored and protected from malicious attacks (hackers). Is ZOS Greedy? Sure. Would we be able to enjoy ESO as it is today if ZOS was not greedy? Certainly not. Greed is not a bad word.

Further on Stickbow's points:
No one will leave if I don't have a trader. That isn't the point. I want to have a trader because its something I'd like to provide my guild mates. I'm not concerned that its a necessary part of my guild; It is an amenity I'd like my guild mates to have access to. Its nice to have a guild vendor. That sums my want.

Personally I do not see how guilds could require monetary donations for crowns. I'm certain that is breaking the terms and conditions somewhere. Even if they were to find a work-a-round, if the guild members were willing to donate money for the guild leader to buy crowns, so what? At the end of the day everyone has a choice. If they donate money to the guild, then the guild buys crowns from ZOS, then ZOS has more money to design more swag and content, then everyone wins.